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Did Pope Francis Do Enough To Fight Torture In Argentina?

Since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis on Wednesday, charges have surfaced that he did too little to protect priests under him during Argentina‘s “dirty war” of 1976 to 1983, when a military junta tortured and killed thousands suspected of being Communists. The main charge against Bergoglio, then a priest in his 30s, is that as the provincial, or superior, of the Society of Jesus in the country, he let the military know that he was suspending his protection of two troublesome left-leaning priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, allowing them to be apprehended and detained and tortured for five months.

Bergoglio has always strongly denied the allegations. His main accuser has been Horacio Verbitsky, a leftist historian whose book The Silence chronicles the evils of the dirty war. According to ABC News, “Verbitsky . . . claims that he has found ‘five new witnesses who confirm Bergoglio’s role in the military government’s crackdown.’” ABC also acknowledges that “for his part, Bergoglio has always denied any implication in the case of the two tortured missionaries, and says he intervened with the then-head of the junta, Jorge Videla, to beg for their freedom.”

Accounts of those most likely to know what happened 35 or so years ago hardly clear up the matter. Gabriel Pasquini, the editor of the Argentine magazine El Puercoespin, tells The New Yorker, “Beyond the details, the main thing is that it’s clear that he was not—by a long shot—at the level needed in the dramatic circumstances. . . . Never, in the years he headed the Catholic Church in Argentina, did he acknowledge its complicity in the dictatorship, much less ask for forgiveness. Will he do so now, from the Vatican?” (There is no question that some church officials collaborated with the junta.) Alfredo Perez Esquivel, a victim of torture who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights work, has said, “It’s true that he didn’t do what very few bishops did in terms of defending the human rights cause, but it’s not right to accuse him of being an accomplice. . . . Bergoglio never turned anyone in, neither was he an accomplice of the dictatorship.”

What about the two priests themselves? What do they have to say? Verbitsky has quoted Orlando Yorio as saying of Bergoglio, “I have no reason to believe he did anything to free us, in fact just the opposite.” However, Yorio died in 2000. Jalics, now 85 and living in Germany, has just been reached, and according to the Miami Herald he has spoken in terms of forgiveness:

“It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Father Bergoglio … to discuss the events,” Jalics said Friday in his first known comments about the kidnapping, which occurred when the new pope was the leader of Argentina’s Jesuits.

“Following that, we celebrated Mass publicly together and hugged solemnly. I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed,” he said.

Jalics’ saying he is “reconciled to the events” is very far from a statement of Bergoglio’s innocence. But as the intensely Catholic blogger Andrew Sullivan, who has been troubled by the issue, writes, “That doesn’t exactly exonerate Bergoglio on the facts but when the victim has reconciled with the alleged violator, and considers the matter closed, we can look forward rather than back.”

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